NEW DELHI — As India struggled to prevent the Commonwealth Games from being cancelled on Thursday, rights groups said that construction workers were paid half the country's minimum wage to toil on sites where accidents have killed dozens.

Organizers were struggling to cope with unfinished buildings, a filthy athletes' village and an outbreak of dengue fever just hours before thousands of athletes had been scheduled to descend on New Delhi.

Britain's Sky News reported that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was holding an emergency meeting Thursday in a bid to avoid a widespread boycott of the event.

Rights group Common Cause told msnbc.com that at least 47 workers died while working on sites linked to the Games, which is due to begin on October 3.

'Exploit them to to the hilt'
Many of the estimated 100,000 workers on Games' site were paid as little as 110 Rupees ($2.40) per day, close to half of the mandated minimum wage of 203 Rupees, said Kamal Jaswal, director and chief executive of Common Cause.

Held every four years for members of the organization of mostly former British colonies, the Games are estimated to have cost as much as $6 billion. India had hoped to use them to display its growing global economic and political clout, rivaling China.

Instead, they have snowballed into a major embarrassment for the government, which is having to fend off criticism of shoddy construction, inadequate security and unfit accommodation.

In a sign of desperation, the federal government ordered the organizing committee to hand over management of the Games Village, which will house 6,500 athletes, to the government.

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"We're not surprised (about the problems)," Basu added. "It is these very officials who did not bat an eyelid when it came to organizing residential workers camps right next to drains, when water seeped into these camps for these workers ... this shows where their priorities lie."

On Thursday, more nations delayed their teams' arrivals for the games as organizers raced against time to address security and health concerns that have already led several top athletes to pull out.